


On Edge

by anonyhex



Category: Chrno Crusade
Genre: Canon - Manga, M/M, Manipulation, Post-Canon, Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships, all grown up, reunited (and it feels so bad)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 11:02:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13029675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonyhex/pseuds/anonyhex
Summary: Several years after the destruction of Pandaemonium, Joshua discovers that Aion is not only alive, but lives nearby, and soon finds himself on Aion's doorstep. He only means to confront Aion and get answers. Or, at least, that's what he tells himself.Eventual Aion/Joshua with explicit sex scenes (hence the rating). Aiming to explore how messed up a sexual relationship between them would be without dipping into noncon. Tags will be updated as needed.





	On Edge

Joshua stood at the door of the cottage with a blank stare. He hadn’t thought that much about what he’d do once he arrived.

He thought about how to get to the house, of course. He waited for a day off, then politely asked to borrow the car from Ewan. When he was asked, he answered nonchalantly “wanted to check out the city,” knowing that he wouldn’t be able to fool Ewan into thinking he wasn’t up to something, but that Ewan might assume he was just going to end up in some nightlife hot spot he shouldn’t be in, and that would distract Ewan from worst scenarios like what he was _actually_ doing. He didn’t dress in his uniform from the Order, but in the blandest plainclothes he could scrap together—which were pretty bland, considering how little the Order paid—and made sure to wear his hat low on his face, shading his eyes and hopefully hiding his face. He hoped that nobody in the Order would ever find out about what he was doing here. If they knew what he’d found…

He sucked in a deep breath and rapped quickly on the door.

No answer.

Maybe he wasn’t home. But considering that he’d chosen to build his home so far away from the bustle of the city…he probably wanted to limit his contact with strangers for the time being. Wise. Irritating, but wise.

He knocked again, harder and longer this time. When he waited nearly a minute without another answer he clenched his fist and slammed the side of his fist against the door, some of his suppressed anger propelling his arm and causing him to bang on the door like a kettle drum.

“I DON’T WANT TO READ YOUR SCRIPTURES!” came a commanding shout from somewhere within the home. The voice made Joshua feel ill.

“I’m not a Jehova’s Witness!” he yelled back, failing to be quite as commanding.

“I’m not going to buy anything either! No brushes, no catnip, no—”

“Not a salesman, either! Come to the door, you’re making a scene!”

There was a long pause, but Joshua knew he’d see the logic in it. The longer they simply shouted at each other through a door, the more likely it’d be that the neighbors would start to wonder what the fuss was about.

As he thought, there was finally the sound of the door unlocking from inside, and the man opened the door half a foot. The voice had already confirmed to Joshua that his hunch was right, but seeing him face to face was still a shock. Aion’s handsome features were marred by a large burn scar across his left face. His hair was much shorter now and meticulously slicked back. His red eyes were the same as they had been, besides that they were widened in shock—a rare expression for someone so obsessed with plans.

Before he could second-guess himself, he pushed his way into the door. Aion stepped back to allow him in as he slammed the door behind him. 

“NEWARK, Aion?!” For once, Aion seemed at a loss for words, and Joshua’s anger built in his chest. “You could be anywhere, ANYWHERE, and you decided to live in NEWARK? You’re watching me, aren’t you? Or are you trying to keep tabs on New York so you can decide when to destroy it again?” 

Aion managed to collect himself and put on an easy smile, slipping a hand into his pocket. “Joshua! I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. Not a boy anymore, are you?” 

Joshua pulled himself up to his full height. Aion was still several inches taller than him. “Answer my question, Aion.” 

“Hm?”

“Why are you so close? That’s sloppy. The New York branch isn’t what it was, but with the work that needs to be done in the city it has a lot of attention from the rest of the Order. It only took me three years to find you. You’re lucky the Order didn’t do it first.” 

Aion shrugged. “Maybe I wanted you to find me.”  
  
“No you didn’t. You were spooked when you saw me.” 

The demon was still smiling, but his eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly. Frustration, Joshua guessed. “I’m glad some of my intelligence rubbed off on you.” 

“Don’t take the credit for Fiore’s hard work.”

That led to a laugh rumbling out of Aion’s chest. He turned from the entry way, casually waving Joshua forward as he entered the living room. “You don’t have much respect for your elders. Good.” 

Aion’s taste in furnishings hadn’t changed much. Everything was dark woods and simple fabrics, but with an air of elegance. The living room was set up in a way that avoided looking sparse or cluttered. The back wall was almost entirely lined with bookcases, stuffed with books on nearly every imaginable subject—fiction, non-fiction, classics and new, psychology and philosophy and religion and history and art. A coffee table with a small potted plant on top sat in the center of the room, framed by a comfortable couch and two chairs. 

Next to the entrance was a piano. Upright, not a grand piano like he knew Aion preferred—probably due to size constraints. Aion had chosen a small “build-it-yourself” kit of a house. To blend in, Joshua assumed.

Aion sat at his piano, gently uncovered the keys, and began to softly play a song from memory.

Joshua recognized it instantly. It was 'Israfel.' 

He wanted to puke.

“Take a seat, Joshua,” Aion said without looking up from the keys. “Make yourself at home.”

Joshua remained standing. Aion sighed, but continued to speak. “I suppose I do owe you some answers. Let’s say…three.” 

“You’re going to number the amount of questions I can ask?!” 

“Yes. You now have two.”

Joshua glared daggers at him and grit his teeth. Aion either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and continued to play. 

“Fine. Where’s Chrono?”

If Aion hadn’t taught Joshua how to play, he would’ve missed it when Aion’s fingers stumbled during the song, lightly hitting two keys at once. He continued to play without any sign that he noticed his own mistake, but Joshua knew he did. “You came all this way to see me, and all you really care about is my brother? That hurts, Joshua. What if I decided to visit your sister instead of you?” 

“Don’t try to misdirect me.”

Aion’s smile twisted into a smirk. “I will when you stop distancing yourself from me.”

The rage that Joshua had been clamping tight exploded out of him. He stormed over to the piano and slammed the cover to the keys down, barely missing Aion’s fingers as he jerked them away. “The last time I saw you, you were about to cut through me to kill her!”

“I didn’t intend to attack you. Not unless you gave me no choice.”

“You better FUCKING believe I wouldn’t have given you a choice!”

Aion turned to look him straight in the eyes, his smile gone, his brow furrowed. He reached out and grabbed both sides of Joshua’s face before Joshua could pull back. His voice was low, calm…and threatening. “I understand that you care about your sister. But Pandaemonium needed to be destroyed. It wasn’t anything personal. I would have killed myself if it stopped her. I would have killed Chrono. I would grind the universe into dust if I had to.”

He leaned in closer, his lips nearly an inch away from Joshua’s. “You’re angry with me? That’s fine. But don’t mistake my goal. Your sister was—is—nothing but a bump in the road to me. You were nothing but a means to an end.”

Joshua wasn’t sure if Aion was trying to calm him down, or goad him. He didn’t care. He tugged against his hands, which only made Aion grip him harder, his claws digging into the scars the horns had left. Pain seared through his temples. “You said I was owed an answer, so GIVE ME ONE.”

“Why do you care? Isn’t he a monster?” Aions fangs were bared. “Like me?”

Joshua grabbed his wrists, pushing his nails against Aion’s skin, trying uselessly to hurt him or at least get him to let go. “You know what my goal is. Rosette is waiting for him!” 

Aion laughed, standing up from the bench and pushing him further into the living room. “Ah, yes. Always sis, sis, sis. Maybe you haven’t grown as much as I thought.”

Joshua knew Aion was poking and prodding at his emotions, purposefully digging into sore spots. Aion didn’t do it much to him when he had the horns—he was volatile enough that it would do more harm than good—but he’d seen Aion do it to both friend and foe regularly. The only person it never worked against was Fiore. 

He KNEW he had to somehow get control of his emotions again, turn the tables, something. “Answer my question.”

Aion pushed him into one of the chairs and towered over him, still pushing against the scars. 

“Answer my question!”

Aion’s grin was terrifying as he leaned in, his breath hot against Joshua’s face. Joshua’s head was burning. It took every bit of self-control Joshua had not to scream, or throw a punch, or yell, or beg for him to stop. Joshua looked him straight in the eye, unblinking, his teeth gritted in pain. Aion said he would answer, but he didn’t want to answer this one, which meant-- 

“You’re afraid!”

Aion froze. His grin fell. His fingers pressed in harder. Joshua’s breath was short from the pain as he continued.

“I already know what you were hiding. Pandaemonium, Lillith, who Chrono is. That’s not it. So…” Joshua cut himself off from asking a question, knowing Aion would use it to dodge more questions because of the ‘rules.’ “You’re protecting him. No, that doesn’t make sense. You don’t want Rosette to see him.”

Aion’s fingers twitched.

“Mm, no.” Joshua continued. “No, there’s no reason. Either there’s a plan or this is an emotional reaction. And this….” 

Confidence surged within Joshua, and his face split into a grin nearly matching the one Aion was displaying just a few seconds ago. He’d never turned the tables onto Aion before. It felt…good. Like when he had the horns. Powerful. Unstoppable. Dangerous. 

“This is an emotional reaction.” 

Joshua laughed when Aion pressed even harder into his skull. He knew he should probably be more worried, that Aion could kill him if he wanted. But he also knew that Aion wouldn’t kill him. After all, he had no reason to.

“Now I just have to figure out…” 

And then it hit him. His grin faded. His heart sunk. 

“You don’t know.” 

Aion threw his head into the back of the chair and let him go. He tried to regain some sense of composure by straightening his back.

Joshua noted his tie was askew.

“Are you done with your game?” Aion growled. “If you drove here from New York just to play riddles with me then you’ve wasted your time.”

Joshua took a moment to catch his breath. He was still high on the energy from the fight, but the pain had come back into focus and the frustration of realizing he’d came here for nothing was causing his excitement to fade. “I thought you were proud that you rubbed off on me, Aion.”

“I’d be prouder if you’d grown out of being a brat.” 

Joshua giggled before he could stifle it. “Now you sound like my sister.”

There was silence in the room for a moment. It was so strange. Although he was in what was basically enemy territory, he wasn’t exactly afraid. He was alert, and frustrated, but elated, but worried, and…

On edge. That was a way to put it. It was like…like rubbing yourself until you’re almost about to orgasm and then just letting yourself hang there without release. His face flushed when the image popped into his head. 

He was worried that Aion was going to prod that next, but, to his surprised, Aion didn’t even seem to notice. “Fine. A promise is a promise. You know I keep my promises.”

Joshua focused back in on Aion. He was looking away, one hand adjusting his glasses and the other arm hugged tightly around himself. “No,” Aion answered. “I don’t know where Chrono is.” 

Joshua paused. “…I’m allowed another question.”

“Yes.” 

“Weren’t you on Pandaemonium with him? I thought you both must have died, but…”

Aion slowly inhaled, and then let out a long breath. “He ran for the controls. But he didn’t understand how they worked, so he just decided to crush them, and…” 

“Wait, that’s when it expl--?!” Joshua realized too late that it was a question, but Aion ignored it.

“My brother was never very good with machines. If he’d brought Sister Christopher along, she could have shown him how.” Aion forced out a laugh, but it was bitter. “He also had a tendency to trust emotions over reason. A mistake that always costs him.” 

“So he’s…. he’s dead.”

“No.” Aion shook his head. “I was knocked out in the blast, so I don’t know how, but Shader somehow got Chrono and I off the ship before it collapsed. She worked hard to keep us both alive.” His lips pressed together. “I woke up earlier than she expected. I saw him. He was…” 

Joshua had never seen Aion have to break off his words to calm himself down. He waited quietly, worried that if he called attention to it Aion would refuse to say anything else.

Aion closed his eyes for a moment, and continued when he opened his eyes. “He’d taken much more of the blast than I had, and the corrupted legion spread when his body tried to heal. Shader had put him in a deep sleep to try to stop it from getting worse. 

She…was not pleased when she saw me in his room. Nor was I.”

The smile came back. This time it didn’t even fool Aion. “We fought over him. I thought it was best to let him die. She believed she could heal him. We eventually stopped arguing, but the atmosphere in the house was…tense. I stayed long enough to access some of my old accounts, get some steady investments going, and find a place to live, then left. I hear from her every now and then, but she’s careful never to reveal her location. She believes that if I knew, I might decide to release him.” 

‘Release him.’ That was a very Aion way to describe fratricide. “Is she wrong?” 

Aion titled his head so he could look at Joshua, pausing for a moment. Joshua suspected it was for dramatic effect. “You’re out of questions.” 

Joshua let himself process all the information for a moment, tracing his fingers on the arm of the chair. So…Rosette would still be alone. When he’d picked up on hints that Aion might still be alive, he hoped that he could give her a little bit more happiness. He owed her that much. Chrono too, maybe. Until now he thought that Chrono had been avoiding them, maybe because of what Joshua had said to him—“you monster!” echoed in his brain, he could feel his knuckles bleeding from the impact of punching him over and over again—but no. He was even in a worse state than Rosette, if Aion was telling the truth. And Joshua had no doubts that he was. Aion was a horrible person, a manipulative, selfish snake, but he had never been a liar.

He couldn’t tell Rosette. It would eat her up—or, worse, she’d run off on another adventure to find him and die trying. He shouldn’t have come here, but now that he knew, he would have to keep this a secret. 

Joshua stood up from his chair and started to walk past Aion back to the entryway. Wait…something was missing. He patted the top of his head. Oh, the hat. Where did--? Ah, by the piano. It must’ve fallen off while he was shouting at Aion. 

He turned and walked back to pick his hat off the ground. “Thank you for telling me. I took as many steps as I could to make sure the Order won’t know where you are. If it seems like they might be heading in your direction, I’ll find a way to warn you.” 

“Joshua…” 

Joshua brushed the top of his hat and placed it back on his head, then strode quickly toward the door.

“That’s the only reason you found me?” 

Joshua rolled his eyes, refusing to look back. “Even if I wasn't, I’m out of questions, aren’t I?” That tense, “on edge” feeling was back. It was exciting but…dangerous. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, it was, just that he had to get out of the house and just breathe. He place his hand on the door knob.

“I couldn’t find Fiore.”

Aion certainly knew how to stop someone in their tracks. Those four words felt like a punch to the gut. Joshua gripped the doorknob tightly. “Yeah. I figured.” 

“I looked.” 

“So did I.”

The silence was back, and the tension. He heard cloth rubbing against each other behind him, a soft step. He felt a presence behind his back.

Joshua jerked open the door, ran out, and slammed it behind him without looking back. Before he could even think he was in Ewan’s car, and pulling down the road as fast as he could. He had to swerve to miss a neighbor walking down the street. 

His heart was pounding in his chest. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. His vision of the road was starting to blur.

As soon as he felt like he was far enough away he skidded to a stop along the side of the road and buried his head in his hands. Images bubbled up and forced their way into his mind. Things he’d fought for so long to not think about. Things he thought he’d moved past. 

A gun pointed at his own sister as she looked back at him, terrified, raising a barrier up to shield herself. 

The side of Fiore’s face, cold, stone but not stone, her hair brushing against his cheek and his heart pounding against her back, wanting to beg her to stay but being unable to find the words buried under the screaming noise in his head. 

Aion standing in front of him as he stood, arms outstretched, begging, believing that Aion cared enough about him that he would stop, that he wouldn’t attack Rosette, that he would listen. 

Chrono bleeding on the ground, already wounded, as Joshua screamed his throat raw, not even pretending to fight back as Joshua beat him. “GIVE HER BACK!” 

“ _MONSTER!_ ”

“Isn’t he a monster?” Aion had asked, in a tone that Joshua had only heard in the rare moments he mentioned things like ‘system’ or ‘Pandaemonium.’ “Like me?”

If Joshua screamed, he would call attention to himself. He’d already been reckless. Father R—Ewan--was smart, smart and always worried, and the more of a trail he left the more likely it would be that Ewan would start asking questions. Ewan wasn’t above keeping secrets, but not if it meant possible danger.

“Shit,” was all he allowed himself to say under his breath. 

His temples ached. 

He really, really wanted to scream. 

Gritting his teeth until they hurt as much as his head, he forced himself to look up again, turned the car back on, and got back onto the road. There was a concerned onlooker across the street, but she looked away as soon as he started to move. She probably just thought he was some drunk on the way home from a speakeasy and didn’t want to get involved. Good. 

It was a mistake to come here. Neither of them had wanted this confrontation. Neither of them had gained anything from it.

Joshua was just going to forget it ever happened, go on with his life, and do what he could to atone for his sins. That was for the best.

 


End file.
